September 19th – Blog Post #1
Readings: Why is Learning Hard, Learning Theories
Prompt: Share a story about how you overcame a learning challenge. Why was it a challenge? What strategies did you use? Use the language you learned in this unit.
When I was 16 years old, I passed my learner’s driving knowledge test, and I immediately wanted to start driving a car. However, my options for vehicles for learning to drive were a very large pick-up truck or a small car that had a manual/stick shift transmission.
The only time I drove the pick-up truck, I hit a trashcan, so I opted for the small stick shift vehicle. Before this, I had no driving experience apart from video games such as MarioKart on the Wii Console, so I understood the basics of steering, gas to go forward, and brake to stop, but that was it. So now I was faced with operating an actual vehicle that I not only had to steer, use the gas and brakes, but also had to understand gear shifting. My father and I spend many hours driving around in an empty parking lot learning how to shift the gears of the car. Once I understood, in theory, when to change the gears based on my situation while driving, I would put it into practice and it was one of the most challenging things I have ever learned. I found it hard to understand what the clutch was doing and how to press it at the right time and then shift into the right gear all while moving/braking/steering to make sure I don’t crash. It was the most multitasking my brain had ever done, and that is why I found it so hard. I had to think about so many things at once just to operate the vehicle properly, and I also had to pay attention to the rules of the road and focus on other drivers to ensure my safety.
This learning experience was so hard for me because I had to change my mind about what I thought driving was. If I was learning to drive an automatic vehicle, I believe the learning curve would’ve been much faster and easier. I had to learn about how my use of the clutch and gear shifting affects the car, so I was also learning about the engine at the same time, which added another layer to my learning.
After months and months of stalling thousands of times, and practicing almost every day, I eventually became confident enough to take the manual vehicle out by myself, and I only stalled once during my first solo drive. While I am nowhere near perfect with driving a stick shift vehicle, I used the strategy of repetition and feedback to improve my skills, which reminds me of a behaviourist approach to teaching. The learning, me, was receiving reinforcement/repetition of the skills while getting consistent feedback on my performance from my teacher (my father). While this process of learning this new and complex skill was tedious, gruelling, and hard at times, it made it worth it, and I am grateful or my father’s patience and guidance when he was teaching me.
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